Long Weekend

Here are some pictures from a weekend Terry and I got to steal away from kiddie activities - very rare. My friend Margie got married up in Northern California in an old mining town, Nevada City. Since our 5 year anniversary was the following weekend we decided to go and splurge on each other. We left on Friday and stayed at a B&B (picture posted). That was our first time in a B&B, we were not sure if we would like it but we did. I can't remember the last time I woke up on a Sat. morning and smelled breakfast already cooking. We hit a couple of wineries on Saturday (also new to us) and had a blast. We got a little tipsy and ended up buying a lot of wine. Saturday night was the wedding and it was very nice, Margie looked beautiful. Sunday morning Terry and I got up and drove to San Francisco to watch the Patriots play the 49ers. It was also Steve Young day and they retired his jersey. Very fun. We stayed in a fabulous hotel in downtown SF Sunday night and had dinner at a Tai resturant. Monday we drove home very relaxed and refreshed. It was a great 5 year anniversary!

Updates

We are pretty much settled into our new house. A few odds and ends need to be put into place but everything looks pretty good. I will post pics as soon as I can.

The girls finished their summer by spending a few days with Riss in Oceanside. That was nice for them because we really didn't do much in terms of fun, with the move and all. Charlie and I joined them after a couple of days. We had a good time at the beach.

Sarah started her last year at Our lady of Assumption. I think she has 8th gradeitis. I see her texting and talking and whatever more than anything else lately. Sadie is in 4th grade and she is Vice President of her class, so both girls are in student council. I think she will have a good year with this teacher. I am coaching Sarah's volleyball team again this year. We are 1-1. Sadie is playing tennis again and moved up a level from the Spring season.

Charlie has discovered the computer games. He is obsessed with the Nintendo DS handheld games and the Wii. We literally need to pry them out of his hands. He did take a 4 week swimming class at our association pool once we moved in. He enjoys swimming whenever we can.

Terry and I decided after the last 3 seasons not to pay for the Sunday NFL ticket games. It is expensive and Terry said we watched too much football last year. I miss it b/c Sunday is usually my relaxing day and I like to watch while I am doing laundry. But since our teams are not off to a good start we are less invested now anyway. Terry lost Tom in the first week and Carson is out with his elbow so we have been a little sad. Unfortunately since we live in California the only games we get on network TV are the Raiders. We freakin' hate the Raiders.

This brings me to our latest update. Terry was wondering after Tom's week 1 what it felt like to tear your ACL so he did it in a dirt bike accident a week ago. We went to the Ortho today and he drained 60 cc's of liquid out of his knee. It didn't look good and judging from the noises Terry made I don't think it felt good either. He goes for an MRI next and then we wait and see what those results are before we make any other decisions. Ironically when the Dr. said "torn ACL" he said "he did a Tom Brady". Weird. Maybe that makes me Giselle?

New House

We closed escrow on Friday, we are now the proud owners of 28964 Oakwood Ln. Highland CA 92346. We will begin moving slowly over the course of this week and hopefully wrap it up on Saturday. The new house is VERY similar to the Victorville house but in a very nice neighborhood, down the hill and closer to our work and the girls school. We are going to rent out our Victorville house and I think we got renters yesterday. Cross your fingers for us. Here are a few pictures.

The season is over

Sarah's Softball All Star team lost last night ending a long tough season. After her regular season ends in the first week of June she plays on the All Star team for a chance to win a Championship. Her team practiced or played every day, one of the games lasted 3 1/2 hours. We are talking 12 and 13 year olds here. Her team won their district, won their sectionals but lost in the divionals. That put them in the top 7 teams of Southern California. Not too shabby. Now she can enjoy the rest of her summer.

Happy 3rd B-day Dude

Charlie turned 3 on the 16th. We celebrated by going to Chuck E Cheese - yeah. Here are some pictures of Charlie doing what he loves best, digging in dirt with his trucks.

A new couch

Today I bought a new couch. In fact I was so happy buying my very first new couch that I bought two and two love seats. I have never bought a couch before. I have been married twice, have 3 kids and 2 step-kids, I have bought 3 houses, owned 5 plus cars and have worked full-time for 15 years but never have I owned my own couch. I have sat my sat my butt on my parents couch, James' bachelor couch, my first husband's ex-wife's couch, my parents couch again, a friends old couch but never my own. It feels pretty good, I'm pretty happy.

Accomplishments

Introducing Our Lady of the Assumptions new School President for the 2008/2009 year, fresh from leadership camp AND a new fourth grader who earned the Art, Religion and Athlete award for 3rd grade in addition to having a dentention free year!! I'm so proud :)

We had a good time at King's Island

For Aunt Gini

Back From Vacation

We're home! Since we couldn't get on our Tuesday evening flight we ended up staying in a hotel in Columbus and flying out Wed. morning. We took a 6 am flight to Atlanta (that's on the way to SoCal right?) with Delta instead of our original carrier American. Delta doesn't care when we made our reservations and their policy is different than American so charged us $25 for an extra bag. That didn't do over very well with me so I bitched "a little". The chick must not have liked that so when we get over to the TSA they lady looks at me and says, "I hate to tell you this, but they chose your family for extra screening". Coincidence? We had 3 guys working on us and even Charlie got a pat down. Once we got in Atlanta we had to wait for the rest of the passengers to board b/c they had all of the kids in emergency rows. They ended of finding us seats, I was in the back, Terry and Charlie were together, Sadie was close to Terry by a few rows and the other two ended up in first class. All of a sudden flying wasn't so bad to them. Even though we had just fed them Sarah accepted the free breakfast. They watched 3 movies a piece and the guy next to Allyson ended up telling her, "Everything up here is free" b/c when they would offer her something she would ask, is it free?

Traveling aside we enjoyed our stay in Ohio. Back to our daily grind. I will share pictures soon, although I do not feel like I took enough this time. I wish we had had more time, it went by very fast. My love to all!

Last Person on earth

that I thought would create a blog page would be my friend Tara, but she did! I added a link from my page.

Hello Spring!

I know it appears as if we have been avoiding posting due to an unexpected and unpleasent February 3rd - but not true. We actually have been very busy. A brief rundown and then I will share random pics.

• The Superbowl actually made us sick, bronchitis and ear infections for myself then Charlie, Terry then Sadie. We missed a lot of work and school!
• Terry, Charlie and I met Riss & Brad in Big Bear for a weekend of snow fun.
• Sarah is playing basketball at school this year and has only 1 game left, then maybe they make the playoffs. Yesterday they played a team I do not like, the girls are very agressive at St. Anthony's and a few weeks ago broke a girls finger on Sarah's team. The girls lost yesterday but Sarah had half the teams points and her 1st three-pointer. Very exciting!
• Mom and Dad took Sarah & Sadie for a night on the town to dinner and a show, They watched Peter Pan the musical at the San Bernardino Theatre. Both of the girls enjoyed it very much. Sarah had seen Wicked back in October and was itching to go again. Sadie's job was to make sure Grandpa stayed awake, I think she accomplished that.
• Allyson is running track for Apple Valley High School. Her first meet was last week and ran the mile in 7.06 and then 800 where she came in second. Terry is so excited she is running, that was his thing in high school. I don't think I'd run if someone stole my purse.
• Sadie is playing tennis again after taking a year off. Her first match is this coming Saturday.
• Riss and I took a scrapbooking class together and made the cutest acrylic Valentine Love books - I loaded mine full of black and white pics of Terry and I during the last 4-5 years.
• Cameron has been riding his dirst bike every chance he gets and when he is not doing that he and a bunch of neighborhood kids build dirt jumps for their bikes. A whole pack of them will take off for the nearest empty space with shovels in their hands.
• Charlie has been very 2 1/2. Terry said he is too old for a 2 year old. His favorite things now are digging dirt (especially where Daddy doesn't want him too), watching Buzz & Woody, eating and pretty much doing whatever it is he feels like at the time. If he doesn't get to do it he will throw a fit and try and kick you. We have experienced a LOT of timeouts right now. Man can that boy get pissed, terrible temper.
• I am busy with work and shuffeling the kids around to practices, dentist appts and the Dr's lately. I am also helping get ready for the huge St. Pat's Dinner and Dance our school puts on every year.
• Terry is well. Busy with work and then he rides his dirtbike as often as he can too.
• We made our reservations for Memorial Weekend in Ohio - can't wait. I hope as many people come as possible.
• We also made our reservations for summer vacation too. We are going back to San Diego this year.
• We had great weather this weekend so we worked in the yard. I pulled out all of the old bark in the front flowerbeds and laid new stuff. What a big difference. I weeded and feeded my flowers from bulbs and the roses that are newly sprouting. I also bought 2 spring pots full of tulips and spring mix flowers to set by the front door. Terry & Cameron weeded the backyard and planted some new plants. Charlie "helped".

Sorry Green & Gold

We were hoping to see Brett move on too. Party is on @ our house though - if your in the neighborhood.

I know what Christmas is all about

"And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid. And the angel said unto them, 'Fear not: for behold, I bring unto you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the City of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.' And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God, and saying, 'Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men." That's what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown.

December Fun

We celebrated the festive season last weekend with baking cookies, looking at lights and going to the movies. First, I took the girls to see Enchanted, we LOVED IT! Such a girl movie and I have all 3 of them loving the romantic stuff just like me. Saturday night we drove to the Mission Inn in Riverside. This is a hotel built in the early 1900's, it sits on an entire city block. For Christmas they go all out on the light and Christmas displays. There are horse drawn carriages, and Dickens Carolers walking around. We brought Vivian with us and she and Charlie just loved it. It was cold and did start to rain but we had walked around all of it by then anyway. On Sunday the girls and I baked. We made 1 rum cake, a gingerbread house and seven different kinds of cookies. Our challenge was keeping Charlie out if everything. I really don't want to know how much sugar he ended up eating, I am sure it would be terrifying. At one point when I was cleaning up I thought Charlie and our dog Bailey were ganging up on me. I would chase 1 away while the other one would be sneaking something else.

December Break

We haven't had too many chances to take the RV out this year which makes us a little sad. We had no plans the first weekend in December so Terry, Charlie and I made a trip to the beach for a little down time. The weather was wonderful, but I have to say anything with Charlie involved isn't really relaxing anymore. But we had fun.

I am thankful for...

Michelle & James having all of us over,
Michelle making dinner,
Marissa making 5 desserts,
playing games,
the love of my family.

Sadie on her birthday

These are the pictures from Sadie's birthday. She got money, a new outfilt, healies, the Jonas Brothers CD, a new bratz doll, and stationary stuff.